56 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. 
About 11 miles from Almont, at milepost 51, there are on the right 
(north) about a mile distant many knobs and spurs having a bright- 
red color. When examined closely the color is seen to run in more or 
less regular horizontal bands, like the rock, but it is not continuous, 
and in places it affects the whole hillside. This color is due to the 
burning of beds of lignite, which has baked and reddened the origi- 
nally dark strata on either side, as clays originally brown or gray in 
color turn red when burned into brick.! 
The success of dry farming has led ‘to the settlement of almost all 
of western North Dakota, and towns have sprung up along the rail- 
roads like magic. Glenullen is one of the newer 
Glenullen. towns, and from its general appearance it is evident 
Elevation 2,000 feet. that in this region dry farming is asuccess. Although 
St Pati ow nites, grassy slopes or fields of grain predominate in this 
part of the State, the appearance at intervals of bare 
knobs or buttes indicates that everywhere under the surface are the 
same lignite-bearing rocks that were seen farther east, those of the 
Fort Union formation. These rocks, when searched carefully, are 
found to contain many impressions of fossil leaves which show that 
the sands and muds, now hardened to rock, were laid down in shallow 
water near a land surface upon which trees and smaller plants grew in 
abundance. Where the land was swampy the vegetation was cov- 
ered as it fell and in time was changed into lignite. In this part of 
the country the lignite is generally concealed by the grassy slopes, 
1 All through the lignite region and the | when dry, and the fires may have begun 
fields of low-grade coal of the Rocky | in any one of several ways. For instance, 
M i He 
beds have burned extensively along their | fires, by lightning, by camp fires, or even 
outcrops, the resulting red color giving a | by alternate wetting and drying, which 
touch of bright t therwise dull | causes very rapid oxidation and a conse- 
and monotonous landscapes. In some | quent rise in temperature. The last sug- 
places the burning has | just sufficient | gestion may appear improbable, but the 
to color the shale and sandstone toa bright | writer has seen a large pile of low-grade 
red, but in others, where the lignite bed | coal take fire after a rain and be entirely 
is thicker or where more than one bed has | consumed. The burning of a dump of 
burned, the heat has been so intense that | waste material is a common experience 
be seen farther west. When a thick bed | ing of a coal bed will continue as long as 
of coal or lignite burns, the overlying | air is available. Near the outcrop the 
ial settles, and frequently great | coal burns readily, but back under cover 
cracks are formed, out of which issue | the amount of air isnot sufficient for com- 
smoke and steam from the burning lignite | bustion and the fire dies out. Many coal 
below. An example of such cracking is | and lignite beds are burning to-day, and 
shown in Plate IV, B (p. 52). it is possible that one may be seen in the 
: As the lignite retains much of its orig- | badlands called Pyramid Park, farther 
inal woody character it ignites readily west, near Sully Springs, N. Dak. 
